Setting Links

Setting Object Links

We go into the lot, and I zone of the whole bloody lot as a basement. Overkill? You bet… but we can trim sections later. We have no budget limits here, so we may as well go somewhat big.

Okay, remember the “buyDebug” cheat? What this does is it unlocks a new option in Buy Mode, allowing us to buy objects that are previously locked out. Go into Buy Mode, then click to sort the list by function first. You’ll see a grid of options; the bottom-right corner with a question mark. That category gives you access to all the special tools and objects you can use for your tomb.

Now, we should make a nice easy “puzzle” for our first room, sort of an introduction to how the tools work. First, I zone off a small room, and place a door at the end of it. Then, I go into the Debug sort of Buy Mode, I select the Tomb Objects tab, and select a floor switch, then place it in front of the door.

Sorry about it being so dark down there; I’m going to worry about lights last. Okay, now for the fun stuff… We need to talk about the operational concept of triggers and behaviors. Setting the way things work in a tomb is comprised of setting an action of a given object as a “trigger,” then setting the action of a different object as a “behavior.” When your Sim does the trigger action, the behavior action is then immediately activated. Any trigger and behavior set is called a “link.”

Sounds pretty simple, right? The only tricky part here is that you must set up triggers and behaviors in the exact order you want for each link. For example, with our switch and door, I need to set this link before setting any other link. For example, if I set a trigger for this switch, then set a trigger for a different switch, a bunch of things can go wrong. This is why it’s best to work room-by-room… and we’ll show you how.

Now, the “testingCheatsEnabled” cheat gave us access to a special command list for objects while in Build or Buy Mode. (It does other things too, but it’s irrelevant to tombs.) The first thing we need to do is default our door to lock, else what’s the point of having it?

To bring up the special list of commands, I need to hold CTRL + Shift and click the door. That brings this up…

Our first step is to select the “Add the ability to add triggers and behaviors” command. If we don’t do this, the door is “normal” and can’t be used in conjunction with triggers and so on. Sometimes, you may want to leave a normal door for a normal room, but we’ll get to that in a bit. For now, we need to add the ability so we can link it to the floor switch. Now when we do a CTRL + Shift + Click on the door, we get this…

Our first step is to select the command at the top: “Lock.” This locks the door completely, from everyone, period. The door is ready.

When setting up links, you must set the trigger first. Let me say that again just for emphasis: you must set the trigger before the behavior. So, we go over to our floor switch, and we do a CTRL + Shift +Click. From the pie menu, we choose “Link Triggers…” and then “Step On.”

Again, there is no visual indication that anything is going on. We’ll be testing all our links later with Agent Jack Cleaner to make sure everything works right, but for now we have to take it on faith that we’re doing everything like we should. Now, the very next thing we must do is set this trigger’s behavior. If we do anything else right now, it’s going to screw things up and we’ll have to start the link process over.

So, I go to the door, I do a CTRL + Shift + Click, then I select “Link to Activated Behavior…” from the pie menu followed by “Unlock.”

Once again: no immediate visual feedback. However, if we hover the cursor over the floor switch, check out what appears…

That pink line indicates a link between our floor switch and our door. The line doesn’t indicate how it’s linked, but it shows that a link at least exists. By the way, if you hover over the door instead of the switch, the lines will still be there but they’ll be green. This is just for notation’s sake, and obviously won’t appear when you’re playing the game.

Okay, so now we’ve set up a very basic link: ordering a Sim to “Step On” the floor switch will unlock the door directly in front of him, so he can advance to the next room. Time to step up the complexity a bit.

Oh, before we go on, let’s save. We can’t save from here, stupidly. You have to click the Edit Town button from the interface; going to Options > Edit Town actually doesn’t work at all. The game makes a pop up box that says “This feature is currently disabled,” but it will let you go back up if you click the big Edit Town button. Then, you have to click the big button at the top-center of the screen marked “Return to Game” to go back to your active family. Once you’re with them, you can go to Options > Save to keep your progress.